


(Almost) A Century

by theragingstorm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brief buckynat, Canonical Character Death, Fluff and Angst, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Descriptions of Torture, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Captain America: Civil War, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Timeline, birthday fic, the calm before the storm that will be Civil War, this has a happy-ish ending i swear, very brief anti-Irish and antisemitic sentiment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 03:39:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6222154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lifetime told out by the events of ninety-nine birthdays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Almost) A Century

**Author's Note:**

> Despite being massively traumatized by the new Civil War trailer, I still managed to write this for Bucky's birthday yesterday. It was written in only a day and a half, and I know the title's lame, but I'm throwing it out here anyway.
> 
> If you were similarly traumatized by that damn trailer, please come talk to me here (because I'm lonely and I need to share the pain): http://captainatalya.tumblr.com/

**1.** His mother had saved up enough for a little cake. Chocolate. Just enough for three small servings.  
He took his piece and smeared it across his face, beaming at his parents.  
“Little rascal,” his father teased.  
His mother smiled, and wiped the chocolate off his chin.  
“Happy birthday, _meyn zun_. May you have many, many more.” She kissed his sticky nose, and he giggled.  
He didn’t know that he would have more birthdays than any of them could dream of.  
He couldn’t know that, across the borough, a young Irish widow named Sarah was pregnant.

**2.** He pressed a hand to his mother’s belly and felt the baby kick.  
“’M really gonna have brother or sister?”  
She smiled and nodded.

**3.** A cold morning day. Sniffles, a blanket, and a tiny bit of chocolate.

**4.** His baby sister would soon be joined by another one. He sulked in his room, convinced that he would soon be ousted from it.

**5.** He got laughed at by a neighbor kid for being half-Irish and half-Jewish. Instead of defending himself, he scowled and said nothing.  
Little Rebecca kissed his cheek to make him feel better, and it worked.

**6.** He spent the day in kindergarten, resigning himself to the fact that he’d have three siblings. Then he got home and gave his sisters a hug each.

**7.** His father told him he was becoming a man. He was so proud, he didn’t notice his parents whispering about money.

**8.** No cake. Not enough money.

**9.** No cake that year either.

**10.** Or the year after that. Instead, he made mud pies with his sisters, had a mud fight, and tracked the stuff all over the living room floor.  
His mother was furious.

**11.** The sun shone.   
The whole family went to Central Park and had a picnic. They played in the grass.  
Everyone smiled.

**12.** He blew out the candle and said:  
“I wish for a best friend!”  
“Don’t say it out loud,” his mother chided. “It’s bad luck.”  
His father rolled his eyes.  
“Winnie, what bad luck could possibly come of having a friend?”  
“Oh, we’re not good enough for you anymore?” Becca teased her brother, and he messed up her hair.

**13.** His mind was elsewhere during class.  
He’d met the other boy – the tiny wildcat who called himself Steve – the previous day. Saved him from a pack of bullies, and had gotten yelled at for his efforts.  
“I didn’t need your help!”  
“Sure looked like ya did.”  
“Fuck off.”  
“Ya kiss your mother with that mouth?”  
“You’re not going away, are you?”  
“Nope. You’re stuck with me forever.”  
So now he had a best friend.

**14.** Steve and Sarah were there for the first time.

**15.** Steve insisted they ditch school, and go to Coney Island to celebrate.   
Then that dumbass punk got sick on the Cyclone.  
When they got back, their teachers tanned their backsides.  
His father yelled for a solid twenty minutes.  
It was worth it.

**16.** He kissed his first girl.

**17.** He kissed his seventh girl.   
Steve sulked all day.

**18.** He, Steve, and his sisters all climbed the roof of the apartment complex.   
They shared a pack of cigarettes, then had to stop because of Steve’s asthma.  
He looked forward to the end of school.

**19.** He had just moved into a new apartment.  
Everyone else was at school.  
He ate his dinner alone.

**20.** He brought a girl home. She was nice, but they never spoke again.

**21.** Steve was there. So he baked a cake.  
“Not bad, Buck.”  
They both smiled.

**22.** He had a job at the docks.  
Steve kissed him in excitement, then froze in guilt and shame.  
But he kissed his best friend back.   
Steve didn’t go back to his mother’s house until noon the next day.

**23.** Sarah seemed sick lately. It didn’t feel right to think of himself.

**24.** Sarah was going to die. He and his whole family already began to mourn.

**25.** He and Steve lived together. His family visited often, but none of them knew that they were more than roommates or even best friends.   
But he couldn’t be fully happy. The war was on, and he knew he’d become part of it.  
He just hoped that his loved ones wouldn’t.

**26.** Boot camp. Letters to home. Prayers whispered in Hebrew and English alike that his loved ones would be safe and away from the war.

**27.** He leaned his head against Steve’s now-huge shoulder, his heart heavy.  
“What are you thinking about, Buck?”  
He didn’t hesitate.  
“So much has changed. So much…I wish hadn’t.”  
“I know.”  
They looked out onto the slushy, muddy European landscape. Behind them, the Howling Commandoes napped by the campfire and cradled their guns like teddy bears.  
He chanced a quick kiss on Steve’s lips.  
“Don’t distract me, Buck,” his best friend teased weakly. “We’re supposed to be watching for Hydra agents.”  
He put on a grin.  
“Don’t worry, Stevie. They’ll never take us alive.”

**28.** The rest of the world mourned the death of their hero.  
But his captors were rejoicing.  
They wrapped a dummy in an American flag and danced around it as it burned. They sketched pictures of the shield and threw knives at it. They made up a partying song, the words in incomprehensible German; but the gist was clear.  
He cried.  
His captors took turns hitting him on the unhealed stump of his arm.

**29.** “Who are you?”  
“James Buchanan Barnes.”  
“Wipe him.”

**30.** “Who are you?”  
“I…don’t know.”  
“Put him on ice.”

Darkness.  
Cold.  
Time passed.

**42.** “Asset. Are you ready for your first mission?”  
He hesitated only a moment…before he nodded.

Cold again…

**47.** He’d killed five people in the name of Hydra.  
They told him that was good.  
He didn’t know what to feel.

–blank–

**52.** He’d killed twelve people in the name of Hydra.  
He’d been out of cryofreeze for a few months.   
He was confused.

–blank–  
–what was he forgetting?–

**53.** “Can you believe Stark reproduced?”  
“I know. Just what this world needs: Asshole Junior.”  
Something sounded familiar about that name.  
He didn’t want to be wiped again.  
He knew it was his birthday.

**58.** He’d killed twenty-seven people in the name of Hydra.  
That was, if you didn’t count the war he’d help start.  
“Happy birthday, Asset!”  
“Weapons don’t have birthdays, idiot.”

**61.** “I don’t want to.”  
They’d held him down and gave him shock after shock.  
He was so relieved when they were done…but that was just the warmup.  
“You will never say no to us again.”  
He couldn’t fight back or respond with his body strapped down and a wet cloth wrapped around his head.

**65.** Thirty-two people killed in the name of Hydra.

**66.** He’d lost count after thirty-nine.

**75.** Before he was put back in his chamber, he thought about one of his more recent missions.   
The wealthy man with his wife…the faked car crash.  
The man had seen his face, just before he shot him.  
The man had started to say a name.  
The next mission, his handlers gave him a mask to wear.

**80.** He was limp and compliant when they wiped his mind.

**81.** They told him he would be helping Hydra’s allies; training young women to be killers.  
He left immediately for Russia.

**82.** He’d developed a preference for one of the girls. A redhead with a stunning face and fierce green eyes.  
She told him her name was Natalia, and asked him for his.  
“Weapons do not have names.”  
Or birthdays.  
But on his, she gave him a name that she’d picked out herself:  
“Yasha.”

**83.** He’d been out of the ice too long. He was starting to develop an attachment.  
They made him leave Natalia.  
Neither cried. Instead, she took him by the collar and kissed him like a challenge.  
“Goodbye, Yasha. I hope we both make it out of these hellholes.”  
When he stepped out of the machine again, he didn’t remember her.

**90.** He’d killed dozens of people in the name of Hydra.   
But they told him his work was good.  
He was quietly proud.  
He didn’t know it was his birthday.

**92.** He couldn’t stay in the ice for as long anymore. His body was reacting badly.  
His handlers traded glances.

**94.** Everyone was angry.   
Someone had returned, someone who should’ve stayed dead.   
He didn’t know who.  
“How can he still be alive!? How could he have survived!?”  
“Everything has to change now.”  
He didn’t ask.

**95.** He was on a mission upstate when the strange creatures attacked New York. From where he was, all he could see were monstrous flying machines and a massive pillar of blue light.  
They called him back in.

**96.** “He’s not as reliable anymore.”  
“He keeps reacting badly to the cryo.”  
“But he’s never been more obedient!”  
“Anyone can be trained to be obedient. But that doesn’t matter if they’re badly affected by the training methods, or the fact that their brain is no more than electrified jelly at this point. Who knows how that’s affecting his body? He’s not reliable anymore.”  
He said nothing.

**97.** He heard them talking about a mission he would be on soon. A man named Nicholas Fury.  
It seemed simple enough.  
He was Hydra’s asset. He would kill Fury and return, to be kept until the next mission or as long as his masters needed him.  
That was all that would happen.  
He didn’t know that Steve – _his_ Steve – wasn’t far away, looking at a candle on a little cupcake that he’d baked himself. He didn’t know that his Steve was crying, like he did every year on that date.  
“Happy birthday, Bucky. I wish…that I could see you and be with you again. I miss you so much.”  
A candle was blown out.  
He waited to become the Asset again.

**98.** He slept alone in piles of trash, Dumpster-diving for food and newspapers.   
He watched and listened for signs of Hydra. His mind had never been more alert; never; because he was never going to let them take him again.  
Nibbling at cold soggy fries, he flipped through a magazine dated yesterday…and a picture caught his eye.  
Six people – five men and a woman – standing together, beaming proudly.  
 _The Avengers Unmasked: Exclusive Interviews With Earth’s Mightiest Heroes._  
Memories connected.  
Stark…Howard’s son. He’d killed Howard, and his wife Maria. The younger Stark looked so much and yet so little like his father.  
Romanoff…Natalia. She’d managed to escape that hellhole. In the picture, her arm was around the shoulders of one of her teammates: a scruffy man with a bow and quiver.  
Captain Rogers…  
Steve. His Steve.  
Metal fingers brushed the page almost tenderly, stroking across Steve’s face. As they did, another memory fell into place.  
“It’s my birthday.”

**99.** It was a cloudy, but warm day in Washington, D.C.   
He sat on the sidewalk beside another homeless person, one that he often saw but never talked to. His backpack sat at his feet, and he was rummaging through it to make sure he had all his belongings.  
Energy bars. Dented water bottle. Some loose change. His one spare shirt and change of underwear. A stolen handgun. His most important possession; that he’d gotten from the Smithsonian gift shop: a Captain America postcard; with his Steve smiling at the camera. His helmet was off, his shield on one arm. He looked happy and free in a way that he’d never known this century.  
“Big Cap fan?”  
He looked at the middle-aged woman beside him.  
“I said: you a Captain America fan?” She nodded at the postcard. “I love him, personally.”  
“Me too.”  
She nodded, then readjusted her sign asking for change.  
He looked up, then back to his side.  
Then remembered something.  
“It’s my birthday.”  
“Really? How old’re ya?”  
“Ninety-nine.”  
She chuckled.  
“You’re pretty funny, kid. Hey, I might have something for ya. Not exactly a cake, but…”  
She rummaged in her bag, then brought out half a squashed chocolate bar.  
He remembered that he liked chocolate.  
“Thank you.”  
“It’s the Christian thing to do.”  
“I’m Jewish. I think.”  
“Well, then it’s that too.”  
She turned back to the street. When she wasn’t looking, he quickly scooped up the last of his change and dropped it in the box in front of her.  
Then he nibbled his chocolate and held the picture of Steve against to his chest, near his heart. The weather stayed warm. No one spat at him.  
For once, it was a good day.

 

–Fin–

 


End file.
